


Ashes For Heart

by alexiel_neesan



Category: Marvel (Movies), Teen Wolf (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Canon Relationships - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Gen, POV Derek Hale, Post Season/Series 02, SHIELD, dealing with the inevitable fallout of 2.12 Masterplan, post-Avenger movie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexiel_neesan/pseuds/alexiel_neesan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>There was one phone call, one, after he was arrested then released by Sheriff Stilinski for the murder of his sister. He knew the voice on the other end, could almost smell the scent of paper and gun oil that clung to the man's suits, could almost see the coffee held in one hand and the no-nonsense expression. The man had expected Laura to answer —that had been his first question. Derek hadn't answered. He closed his eyes and willed his fingers to unclench.</em>
  <br/>
  <em>"I'd like to know why your name showed up for a background check on our radar, Agent Hale."</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>With so many murders and so-called animal attacks putting the town in the spotlight, it was only a matter of time before someone came down to Beacon Hills to track two missing SHIELD agents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Prologue Of Sorts

There was one phone call, one, after he was arrested then released by Sheriff Stilinski for the murder of his sister. He knew the voice on the other end, could almost smell the scent of paper and gun oil that clung to the man's suits, could almost see the coffee held in one hand and the no-nonsense expression. The man had expected Laura to answer —that had been his first question. Derek hadn't answered. He closed his eyes and willed his fingers to unclench.

"I'd like to know why your name showed up for a background check on our radar, Agent."

 _I was arrested for my own sister's murder. I can't come back. I never planned to come back if she didn't came back too. Laura's dead._ He licked his lips, rolled his tongue around the words, tried on a tone as even as the man on the other end. "You'll get a full report via email, sir." 

"You do that. Try to keep the rest of your leave uneventful, if you don't mind." 

He nodded, knowing full well the man wouldn't see him, wouldn't hear the movement. He listened to the tone after the call was disconnected for far longer than should have been normal, the sound echoing dully.

He threw the phone into a passing truck with Montana plates fifteen minutes later, then drove to the next town in Laura's Camaro. He made sure the car was clean again, listening for the particular hums of bugs, found none. He stayed out of the security cameras' range in the library and only spent ten minutes on the computers with free internet, using eight to write down and implement the privacy protocols erasing his presence from the machines, thirty seconds to think, one and a half minute to type the message down. He then drove back to Beacon Hill in the night. He would buy a burner phone the next day, in another town; Sacramanto, probably. None of that would stop someone from finding him, but it would slow them down, and it was habit by now.

_I, Derek Hale, hereby resign from my post as an Agent of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division._


	2. Discussions [I]

"I'd like an explanation as to how you seem to have managed to forget every single thing I taught you."

Derek didn't startle, but was relieved neither Isaac nor Peter —especially not Peter— were there to witness him be caught unaware all the same. He had barely heard her —could barely hear her the first times they met, could barely scent her, could barely see her when she wanted to be invisible. Being Alpha, and the surge in power being in a pack brought, apparently hadn't helped. He just had learned how to hear her, if she wanted to be heard. 

Not hearing her call him, tease him with, _voltchonok_ startled him. And it startled him, that he missed the address.

He turned away from his gathering and packing of what he had brought here. Natasha Romanov seemed as at ease in the breaking down train garage as anywhere else, solid stance and jeans-jacket-dark-shirt that reminded him of Laura, the faint traces of leather, metal and car on her. He didn't look at her eyes, didn't look at her face, kept his eyes at her left shoulder, at where the tips of her red hair was resting. Anything but to see the disappointment ringing in her tone displayed in her gaze. 

She threw two identification cards to the ground between them. Laura's face stared back, and he slid his eyes to his own signature, peeking underneath Laura's severe black suit, just harsh black lines in the picture. He had buried those. Had found Laura's everything, her car, her bag, her clothes, had found the smell of death, had found her body, and everything that had once tied him and her to New York had been buried underneath the shell of his house he now avoided —half by choice, half by force. He hadn't kept them with their service weapons and the other things that had survived the fire, the fire-proof boxes with the books and the trunks of ancient restraints he had dragged back to the train depot and that he was now packing away. Those were necessary. The ties weren't anymore. Laura wasn't there anymore.

"I resigned." He put on his best dry tone for it.

"Nobody resigns from SHIELD. Certainly not by e-mail."

"Are you here to drag me back, then?" And it was all the cockiness he could muster here, a mask just as good as the ones he knew Natasha offered to him, to Laura, to the world, Alpha bleeding into him and he still couldn't look at her in the eyes. He hoped his smile didn't look as brittle as it felt, sideway on his face and ready to slide off and shatter, weakness, and alpha didn't show weaknesses. SHIELD Agents didn't show weaknesses. Werewolves couldn't afford to show weaknesses.

After— after everything, he had wanted, still wanted, to be like Laura, ready and sure and strong and alpha and sister. He had wanted, still wanted, to be like Natasha, Agent Romanov, Black Widow, never ever be _with_ her, and there were psychological assessments and Agents shaking their heads when they thought he couldn't see or hear them, maybe be _hers, belonging_ in the way only a wolf coming from a large pack suddenly cut dry from all of them but one wanted to belong, even with the pressure of the Unit, kin and kind. And hiding down below, unsaid and barely acknowledged, there was be her, strong emotionally and mentally, unafraid, deadly and beautiful like her knives, and hiding and hidden and there and never slowing down. 

Derek didn't hate what he was. He had never understood hating being a werewolf, like Scott smelled, like he shouted at him, like some did, at SHIELD, Agents bitten when there had been no other choice. He was born this way, grew up this way, experienced the world this way, faster and brighter and more violently than most humans. He hated _who_ he was, stupid Derek who had fallen for the wrong person, stupid trusting Derek, idiot Derek who should have known better, should have listened harder, stupid idiot Derek who had killed his entire family, stupid idiot Derek who had no idea what he was doing, stupid idiot Derek who had made the Kanima, stupid idiot Derek who was hiding behind teenagers and an abandoned train depot, stupid idiot Derek running from humans, stupid idiot Derek who should have never been the Alpha, who should have died in the fire, should have died in the line of duty, should have died from the wolfsbane, should have died in the pool. 

"Or are you here to kill me?" He wanted— he didn't know what he wanted. He didn't trust her, didn't trust anyone, didn't trust himself and never would again. He wanted to run with her, bare his throat at her feet, hated himself for the longing of _team_ and _fight_ and _safe_.

She walked closer, keeping her eyes on him. He didn't move. He didn't move when she stepped to his left; she then took a few more steps, walking around him, the only hint of her presence the sound of her boots' heels crunching dust and dirt particles. She was examining him, he knew. He wondered if she could see beyond the physical, if she could see the power beyond his skin that called for _pack_ and _power_ and _protect_.

She'd be unstoppable as a wolf. 

The thought, the _urge_ to bite her took him by surprise, and that was enough of a distraction he missed her first move, her first hint. The edge of her hand hit his trachea and he didn't, couldn't, react fast enough. The hit cut off his air. The fight was on. He whirled around, eyes flashing, evaded another hit, didn't shift. He tried to put distance between them, to use his longer reach, but she was inside his defenses, low to the ground, just behind the next move, then the next, silent and quick. He got her, in the leg, slowing her down. She retaliated with the heel of her hand knocking his head back, then a kick at his bared throat. Another exchange, her full strength behind the hit, strength enough to kill a man, and he was grateful that she was not pulling her punches. He fell back, got on the defensive, didn't shift, pushed his whole weight into a hit, changed his trajectory at the last instant. She ducked the hit, reached high, hit him, hit him again.

He had the advantage of brute force, of endurance, of being on his turf. She had the advantage of being faster, of having taught him, of experience. The fight didn't last long, blow to blow, but the intensity of it had been enough to make both of them pant.

He looked up at her, winded, his head forced back by her boot on his throat, his hands around her ankle. He wouldn't be able to take gulps of air, wouldn't be able to growl, wouldn't be able to move. He could have broken her ankle, human-fragile under his skin, but she had bested him, and it was her. There would be no judgment for submitting. There would be no judgement for his grief. There would be no judgment for breaking. He felt his lip shake, his lungs taking in shallow breaths. He couldn't breath, and he couldn't stop the short gasps from being dragged out. She didn't relent her strength, and he was grateful for it.

"I had to bury her."

He took a shuddering breath, the air stuck in his throat.

"I buried Laura." 

He could feel it. The spasms, of keeping it in. The sobs, staying in, chocking him. He wasn't breathing, wasn't howling—couldn't howl, couldn't show his weakness, couldn't broadcast his position to the hunters, to his wolves. He couldn't cry either. No tears, not anymore. He kept his hands wrapped around Natasha's ankle, pressing down hard enough that moving it would be a problem for her.

And he choked on guilt, warm on his face.

+++  
"You, me, and two bottles of vodka."

"I can't get drunk."

"Neither can I. It's not for you or me. It's for Laura." Somehow that made perfect sense. He looked up from where he was sitting on the floor, not bothering to put himself back together, to brush away the dust. She was inspecting what he had been gathering to move, the restrains and the triskelion-adorned trunks. He still didn't know where he was moving all of that to, but that had been his only thought since the fight with the kanima, since Scott's— and his skin crawled at that, _betrayal_ and the horror of being held down and _notsafenotsafe_. "You're going to need to train. You don't know how to incorporate the new strength."

He hung his head. True, and true. 

There was a noise he couldn't quite define. Her voice sounded closer. "Murder of a SHIELD Agent requires a full official investigation." 

"Is that why you're here?" he asked again. She still had not answered his question. Official investigation was not a single Agent, however good, trained and deadly said agent was. 

She sat down next to him, moving at the corner of his eyes. "I'm on leave."

"What?" Agent Romanov, on leave? 

"Didn't you hear? The Helicarrier is fully functional, the Avengers and SHIELD saved New York from aliens, and— a lot of good people died."

The bottles wouldn't be just for Laura.

+++  
They went to find the worst bar they could find in Beacon Hills. It was quite the feat. The whole town was getting more upscale clubs, upscale restaurants, upscale everything. For some reason it appealed to a richer population than six years ago —or perhaps he had never paid enough attention. 

There was no perhaps about that.

The dive was on the outskirts of the town, by the interstate. There would be mostly truckers and the people the new and shiny bars did not attract. The floor stuck to his sneakers when he walked in, on Natasha's silent heels. Heads turned, disinterested stares, assertive ones, leering, some outright glaring when they noticed him shadowing her. He didn't try to untangle the mess of scents, unwilling to delve deeper than the superficial and uniform stink. 

Derek let her order, did not react at the face the bartender gave Natasha, tried to imagine the face she was giving him in return. She gave him the bottles when she got what she wanted, carrying the glasses off to one of the few unoccupied tables —one with sight-lines that covered most of the room— where they both slipped in the shadows. 

Laura did that, too, used to, finding the best vantage point in any room.

Laura had been Command— not that far up the chain, but Command all the same. Derek, he had been a covert hitter, a tank, keeping the team he was assigned to away from harm and using any and all resources for this goal. Most of the time that had meant being invisible, then taking hit after hit, taking bullets meant for others. He healed. It only hurt. He was still doing it. There weren't many awkward revelations there. He was alpha of his pack. Had to protect the pack. Had to protect humans. Had to protect his team. And then and only then he had to protect himself. 

Natasha and he sat down. He opened the first bottle, tried to find something to say.

Sarcasm and dry humor had been defense mechanisms in the Unit, a way to detach themselves from the situation, to make fun of themselves, to stay sane in the face of the unbelievable and impossible they faced —"unbelievable and impossible", and the Unit was consisted of werewolves employed by SHIELD, most of them human agents that had had to be turned in the course of a mission, when a dead agent was too high a stake to happen, too much information lost, critical knowledge that couldn't be allowed to disappear. The Unit did not function like a pack, something he and Laura had loved and despised at the same time, but it was belonging— to a group, to a place, to other people. Natasha… she existed outside this microcosm, while still staying within the realm of SHIELD. She had been a shadow he had noticed, someone he had tried to emulate. She could disappear in a crowd, an empty room; she could command all attention in any situation, drive all stares to her and disappear the next moment. He had wanted that, those skills, the ability to disappear, the, for lack of a better word, turn-it-on-and-off. There was still Kate's poisonous words in his ears at the time, all _pretty boy_ and _hot body_ and _look at you;_ he still wasn't talking to anyone who wasn't Laura, who was then just a junior agent to the Unit. 

Their SHIELD handler, the person they had went to to be safe from the hunters, technically family in the loose sense of alliances and truces between packs, had insisted on them finishing high school. The class had been small, filled with individual teachers and other prospects, kid geniuses and other agents who had never gone that far before being recruited. He had hated every second, hated himself, hated the power plays and show of dominance and the pitying glances. The gym had been an escape, older members of the Unit keeping an eye on him. Those, those he hadn't minded— had minded less. They were werewolves, keeping an eye on their youngest member, not humans watching a broken boy breaking apart from the inside out of self-hate, keeping the pieces together for Laura's sake. 

Laura had thrived. 

The alphas of Unit taught her all she needed to know about the power in her veins, every day. She brought the first Camaro —not the one that would blow up in Texas, but the one, cherry red to match her eyes, that would go up in flames as a distraction during the destruction of a Hydra unit— on her first leave, drove with him to Boston, then Portland, Maine, ran wild with the authorization of the local pack in White Forest National Forest, then Montréal, tried her French and all the drinks in a bar on a saint-named street. 

Two years in, and she was in charge of her own mixed squad, demolition specialists with devil-may-care grins and a hard glint in their eyes. By that time, he had tried his best to replicate Agent Romanov's moves and the way she walked in the privacy of his bedroom— monk cell, Laura had always called it, for the sparseness, for the sterility. All he had ever cared about, save for Laura, he had caused to burn to the ground. He couldn't see the point of owning things anymore. Things burned. People burned. Laura thrived, eyes red and teeth pointed, phoenix. He followed her in the still warm ashes.

Two years in, and Natasha Romanov noticed him in the gym with a calculating eye. It turned understanding at times, when he wasn't supposed to notice, when she was pushing him to the brink of what he could do, what he could stand. The Black Widow had seen him, and she taught him to turn-it-on-and-off. She taught him everything, as much as he could learn he thought sometimes, how to disappear, what to eat to not hurt when the disgust was too much to not throw up. She tried to teach him to dance, in a seldom used room with a wall of mirrors. He hadn't dared look at himself the first times, his eyes fixed on her moves. He couldn't touch the grace with which she moved, felt too large for the space, for the elegant sweeps of arms she asked of him. _Look_ , and _look_ ,, she commanded and he never could see anything but himself, bile in his throat. Parkour, and the man whose call-sign was Hawkeye she shoved Derek at, made it click finally. How to use his body, how to think about it as another weapon in his arsenal, not just as him, not just as something to be guilty about, dark, swirling thoughts and he still didn't talk to the agents he had to talk to in order to pass his psych evaluations and becoming a full-fledged junior agent. But he talked to Laura, he talked to Natasha, he talked to Clint Barton and to the members of Unit. 

Sometimes, he cursed his abilities. He was still growing into his body, finally settling, Laura calling him Ugly Duckling one day and Swan the next. His hearing and sight settled in leaps and bound. There were jokes running, on how he turned into Natasha's shadow, her puppy for the nastiest ones. He would have rather not heard. _You can't tame a wolf_ , said ruby red lips and Natasha made him move faster, longer, quieter until it went flat and hard and calm in his head.

Derek wondered about his allegiances, three months into this thing without a name. He didn't knew what Laura wanted, what he wanted, if being at SHIELD would be permanent, if there was still a place for them in Beacon Hills, if the territory was still theirs, if Kate was after them, if the hunters were after them, would always be after them. Laura had to beat it out of him, the fear, the doubts, pants and blood on both sides. The Hale pack was only both of them and Peter comatose across the country, but they were Unit too, Unit, and SHIELD, and Laura would never not be Derek's sister, Derek's first role model after their mother, Derek's Alpha. He swallowed the knowledge that would probably make her kill him, as she had the right as his Alpha for having killed his family, swallowed the guilt and the hate. 

Three and a half years in and he had a high school diploma, a handful of college credits in Contemporary History and Geopolitics, he had been on an handful of operations, and he met Agent Coulson for the first time. The Black Widow looked at Derek, over the shoulder of the man who smelled of paper and gun oil and _predator_ , nodded, _you're ready_. He learned hurry up and wait, he honed how to smile the most real fake smiles he had ever shown the world until they tasted right like the edge of a knife, he learned adrenaline and the urge to protect, he learned the sharp-blunt fire of being shot and healing the minute next, he learned how to be Agent Derek Hale, to hide his damage, to fake everything and how much to trust the right persons and to come back to Laura's and his apartment and let his sister wrap around him in their sleep, let himself wrap around her and stand guard. 

Six years in and Laura and him had grown up, taken their place, their space, claimed their healing and their scars. He had went around the world twice, Laura three times. He had been shot so many times he had lost track of the number and had only kept a bitten open cartridge as reminder that he could still be hurt. He had learned bits and pieces of a dozen languages, enough to know when people called him _dog_ to his face. He had learned to keep still. He had learned more about being a werewolf in one operation with a grizzled senior field agent who had been bitten in the Balkans than during all his previous years of life. He had learned what hurt and how and why. Natasha was still a shadow, a ghost moving to her own rhythm, involved in operations whose speculation of existence itself was a secret. He hadn't known —how could he have?— that he would follow Laura to Beacon Hills only to find her dead and that he would kill _murderer_ Peter _unclemyfault_ , that he would have to stay, _territory_ and _protection_ and _pack_ singing in his bones, otherwise he'd have made a point to say his farewells to the woman who had been more than a teacher.

He still had no idea why Natasha had taken any interest in him— the Black Widow, the legend, the unknown variable. He had had… hints, suppositions. He had never asked, what she was, if she was anything… else. More. He never would. Some things were better unasked, unknown. 

He couldn't see the six years past on her face now, as he poured the clear drink in their glasses. 

The first drink was taken in silence, too loud radio trying to drown even the sound of his breathing inside his head. The man in red at the pool table was a grifter, the trucker who was being robbed blind was carrying, the woman close to them nose-deep in beer was sweating too much to not be on something. Natasha poured herself more vodka. Derek kept observing the bar. 

"I owed Laura a debt."

Derek snapped his attention back to Natasha. He frowned, going through the missions he knew Laura had been on, the ones he knew Natasha had been on, if either of them had ever mentioned—

"I can't answer the question you're thinking about, Derek." She stared at him, downed another shot. "I am, however, transferring my debt." 

That it was transferred to him was clearly implied. Was that why she was there, then? If anyone should have held a debt, it should have been him, to her. He held his tongue, poured alcohol into her glass. The label on this bottle was peeling off on the side, the adhesive gone brittle and yellow. "Thank you," was his verbal response. 

They made a serious dent in the first bottle, observing the shifts in customers. Three men with somber faces and the scent of gun oil on their hands walked up to the bar, sat like they had practiced the motion in a mirror, making his neck tingle. He kept an eye on them, his face hidden, their demeanor reminding him too much of hunters. A couple came in, with arms linked together and the careful staggering of people already drunk. He mimicked Natasha's posture, on the edge of his consciousness, and felt the hard knot of tension between his shoulders, below the skin and ink, shift and ease up. Maybe he did see Natasha nod, in approval. Maybe he imagined it.

They drank some more, in silence. A new game of pool was going on. The background music exchanged one country singer for another.

She slid a tablet the size of her palm to him. It was lighter than the models he had encountered so far, sleeker, faster to respond, unbranded. 

"StarkTech?"

She nodded. "Custom-made for us." The display lighted up in shades of blue— a file was already open. She gestured with the hand that was holding her glass. "This one is yours, by the way." 

Derek looked up at her from under his lashes, head lowered to study the file. His SHIELD-related technology had been buried with the cards, and his phone disposed off. New technology— "I resigned."

She made a move with her free hand, barely concealed frustration. "Read the files." Then she took the bottle they had been working on and kept it to her side, not looking at him.

Ten minutes later, he was done reading, he had a hand on his face and the other curled tight enough to draw blood where his fingers —still plain blunt human fingers— were digging into his palm. "Natasha, this is— Fuck, I can't—"

"Enough. You're holding territory here. This—" and the first file popped up at her tapping, "will be your problem sooner rather than later. Establishing a permanent outpost is an advantage, given the recent events we got a record of. You need the back-up and the stability—" 

"Establishing an outpost with people like me is going to drag all the hunters around the country here to take us down!"

Her eyes went hard. "Argent had been a person of interest for a long time." 

There had been more— she had been saying more, about bait, target, something. Derek had been trained well, to conceal involuntary body responses, to control his heartbeat, to substitute one expression for another, to sit still in the presence of negative stimulus; but at the name, he flinched back, his eyes fixed on the table and flashing, fists curled.

Natasha stopped talking and leaned back in her seat, carefully. He could see it, at the very edge of his vision, the same way he could see when a full glass entering it. It still took him a little too long to control himself, to fight the shift and the cold sweat down his spine. He took the shot, the brief burn anchoring him a little more into the here and now. Natasha's hands reappeared on the table top— he had little doubts at least one had been in easy reach of a tranquilizer dart. A tranq, or something else. Her point, about him needing the stability brought by other werewolves, had just been made for her. His pack, if he even could call it so, was not secure and tight-knit enough to guarantee his mental and physical stability, would not be able to guarantee Isaac's —which explained why he had drifted closer to Scott— nor Peter's, leaving themselves open to a repeat of Peter's early rampage. He needed people who knew how to be agents, soldiers, like him, who knew what they were doing, not teenagers and unknown variables he had no idea how to talk to. 

He could feel her staring at him. 

"I haven't seen you lose control since the first time I've met you," she stated.

 _There have been complications. I've let myself been used— again. There are people we can never trust._ Instead, he licked his lips, tasted metal and alcohol. "I'm fine." He did not let her give him more than an unconvinced stare. "Gerard Argent tried to give himself the bite." He could feel his shoulders squaring away, his spine going rigid— picking up standing at attention, security blanket for the not-debriefing he was giving her, "It failed immediately due to— to the actions of a third group. I haven't seen a body, can't say if he's dead or not." 

The three men who moved like hunters got up. He tracked them out of the corner of his eye until they left.

"I thought it was either turning or dying." Her voice was too soft, and he wanted to break something. Himself, maybe.

"So did I," he said, and there was the weight of Lydia, Jackson and the kanima, and the black ichor Argent had been oozing out on the floor of the warehouse.

AC/DC suddenly blared in the bar's speakers, and he unconsciously mimicked Natasha's sudden tension. 

"Problem?" he mouthed, and waited a beat for her answer. She surveyed the whole bar, eyes flicking down at something hidden under the table, before she grabbed the bottle, finishing it. She shifted her posture slightly, artificial casualness. 

"False alert." He raised an eyebrow. "I told you. I'm technically on leave." That still didn't clarify the sudden tension. Did she expect someone to interrupt it? "Stand down, Derek." 

He kept his attention up until the end of the song, mentally tagging the five people who walked in at the time and the mounting tensions at the pool tables. 

"Derek." He turned back to Natasha, didn't quite look at her in the eyes. He watched her hands, on the glass, on the table. "Stop running."

He turned away, huffed. "I want a beer. Want anything else?" The vodka had left a strange taste in his mouth, an uniform coating of slickness, something metallic like an aftertaste of blood and ashes. 

He tried to pull his skin back on at the bar, while the barman was messing with the taps. He had not missed the disconnection of having Natasha there, like his body was suddenly too large for him, like he was floating inside his own flesh— and at the same time, she was grounding. He didn't look forward to reporting the events of the last months and how much he had messed up, he didn't look forward to the possible events looming ahead in the files she had just given him.

But for the first time in months, he was starting to feel like himself again.


	3. Discussions [II]

The water smelled slightly of rust and chemicals. It was a significant number of steps above the water from the boys' lockers room at Beacon Hills High. It still ranked below water pressure in a real house, like at Stiles' or Erica's the few times he had slipped in, but it was more than decent, for a hotel. No, not a hotel or even motel, a _bed and breakfast_ , because Natasha had specific quirks when she allowed herself to indulge in them. 

The room, the bathroom, did not have the pervasive stench of motels of too many people, bleach and sex. It smelled closer to a house, one that still saw a lot of people, but the scents were deeper. It was as if the same people had returned regularly over the years, turning the rooms from anonymous to familiar. He had no idea why someone would want to return to Beacon Hills regularly, stuck between too far from the coast and not close enough to the mountains and trails. 

He had no idea why someone would return to Beacon Hills if not called by blood.

There was a murmur of sound coming from the other room, a stream of voice he was carefully not paying attention to. 

Derek passed his hands over his face and hair, allowing his eyes to close for a fraction of a second longer than he would have done had he been alone. The water had run with dust and dirt and blood he hadn't had the time or the opportunity to clean since last night at first. He stayed under the spray, letting it run hard enough that the edges of the world were muted.

The two files of the —his— tablet were gnawing at him. There was one was about creating a SHIELD outpost in Beacon Hills. The city was small enough, and big enough at the same time for it: new people would not be glaringly obvious, but the city was not big enough to attract much trouble by itself, once werewolves and hunters were taken out of the equation. Beacon Hills did not have major chemical factories, foundries, steel mills or any major industrial installations that could become a target from known domestic terrorists groups. Also, as far as he knew, there were no SHIELD bureaus in either Seattle, Portland, San Francisco or San Diego, and until they had the manpower and resources to implant that many teams, Beacon Hills was the half-way point in the west coast, making the hypothetical Beacon Hill SHIELD outpost the primary hub on this side of the country. And last but not least, he held territory here. From a supernatural point of view, even if by human laws he had no claim to the land, he was responsible for Beacon Hills and a very large part of the land around, including the Preserve.

He could ask for, and be visited by, Unit members without the shakes and dances of stepping on others packs' territories. He could ask SHIELD to man their still-hypothetical outpost with the Unit agents who had asked, time and time again only to be refused, to be stationed and to stay put somewhere that was not New York with its complicated alliances of multiple packs and territories it held. He could ask them to bring their families. He could give them the woods to roam for the full moon. He could have a pack, in the loosest sense of the term, in the way that shifted under your skin with kind and duty and the same insignia on your shoulder, again.

Hook, line, sinker. One never resigned from SHIELD. It gave you what you wanted. 

He opened his eyes, blinking water out. Truth to be told— truth to be told to himself, examining the last few months honestly, he had no idea what to do with himself without SHIELD. Without SHIELD or without being part of something; trying to create his pack had been has much an instinctual act he had had no idea how to work around, looking for strength and stability, as it had been creating something to be part of. 

The spray sputtered for an instant, going cold fast before the warmth came back. His head felt clearer, clearer than it had been in months, the large quantities of alcohol he had ingested already processed and past. There was still the indistinct murmur of voice in the next room, the buzz and click of the AC. He stared down, at his legs, at the drain between his feet. His feet looked strange, he thought. Too long and bony for those legs, the ones that had bulked up with the punch of _alphaalpha_ in his veins, like his arms had bulked up, and his shoulders, and everything. The few clothes he had brought with him from New York were too tight, seams breaking when he moved too fast, when he ran for his life.

He would have to do a lot of running, in the future.

If the first file Natasha had slipped him was to be trusted, if what he had noticed in his runs to know his territory was real and not the first touches of loosing his mind, if what he knew independently of the previous two if-s was to be believed —if, if, if— there was an Alpha pack heading for Beacon Hills. 

There was an Alpha pack heading for Beacon Hill and he would need to run or fight. He leaned until his forehead touched the cold tiles below the shower head, the water pounding on his upper back. 

The murmurs of voices in the other room stopped. His ears strained to compensate, to hear through the water and the silence. He heard a zip, a rustle of fabric, fast efficient motions and the drag of a chair.

Natasha was sitting down with her tablet when he walked back into the room, his hair dripping down cool water on his back. The glance she cast on him was clinical— taking stock of what he looked like, of the damage he could cause, if there had been any change, any scar. He knew Natasha. She was safe. She had seen him far more naked than merely wearing a towel around his hips. He still forced himself to take a breath, turning his back on her to find clean clothes in the bag he had left on the bed earlier. Maybe he should have taken the bag in the bathroom, he thought, digging through layers of dirty shirts, his fingers brushing against the holsters of Laura's and his service weapons. 

He tensed when she moved. It didn't make him stop though, just made him put a shirt on faster. He didn't like to think why. 

"I'd like your report, now." Natasha's heartbeat was even. "And I'm not the only one." Derek's wasn't.

He finished dressing up, toweling his hair perfunctorily. What was it, now? Two or three in the afternoon— he hadn't slept yet, hadn't emptied the train depot, didn't have a place to hide or live, and he knew his car wouldn't cut it now. He still had Isaac to think about, even if he had left the teen at Scott's last night. Morning. He needed to know where Peter was with more certainty than the far-off pack bond, to keep him in the dark about SHIELD as long as he could. He nodded, still not looking right at Natasha. "I need to phone some people, first."

Natasha was looking at her tablet when he finally looked up. She didn't ask anything, and he didn't talk more either.

+++

Peter didn't answer, predictably. Derek ended up leaving him several text messages, hoping for the best and knowing full well hoping had never helped him. All he wanted was for Peter to stay mostly put and not cause more problems than they— well, than Derek currently had. 

Derek stared at the phone's display for a bit. The bed and breakfast had a large backyard, with a pool and a large vegetable garden. He could smell the chlorine and the growing tomatoes from where he was, sitting on one of the benches on the back porch. 

Isaac answered on the first ring. By the sounds, he was in the boys' lockers. Lacrosse time, then. Derek didn't bother with small chat, not answering Isaac's _"everything all right?"_

"Can you stay with Scott's tonight?" He heard the brief silence on the other end— a question, maybe. "He and his mother have been targeted by Gerard before. Until I have the confirmation he's dead, they're in danger." 

_"Is that what you've been at?"_

"Yeah." Lies and half-truths were so much easier to pass on the phone. "Don't go back to the depot either. And don't let Peter drag you into anything."

_"How long should I stick to Scott?"_

Derek closed his eyes against the sun on the pool, too bright for his eyes. He needed food, sleep, the certainty of having someone at his back. He needed an idea of what exactly he was doing, a safe place for his pack, information about everything. "I'll call you back." He was about to end the call, hearing the coach's distinctive voice through the phone. "Have— anything from Boyd and Erica?"

The silence would have been answer enough. _"Stiles said they were with him at the Argents'."_ Derek already knew that. Chris had— well that was another of his current problems, Chris and his remaining men and Allison. The one thing Derek could count on with Chris was that the man would be true to his code and honor. He had said he had let Erica and Boyd go in the same breath he had explained how they had been caught, then it was what had happened. He hadn't lied, and he was not one for head games, unlike the rest of his family. Derek had called Erica's phone and Boyd's, after Isaac and he had left the warehouse, had only been able to leave them voicemails. And all he had left there was asking them to let him know, or if not him, at least Isaac, that they were alive. 

They were allowed to leave. He couldn't, wouldn't, force any of them to stay in one place, to stay for a situation that was too much for them, to stay with people they weren't okay staying for. There hadn't been any answer. 

He could feel them, through the tenuous bond of the bite, a little further away each hour. Soon there would be nothing, and by that he knew they were not in Beacon Hills anymore. 

"Okay." Derek sighed. "Stick to Scott. Stay on your guard." He'd have terminated the call had it not been for Isaac's quiet _"Jackson wasn't in class."_ Derek sighed again, shifting so that the back of his head hit the wall. 

"There's a chance his parents made him stay home. I'll check. If you see him, call me, even if it's the middle of the night." He heard the coach's piercing whistle before he heard Isaac's quiet _"Will do."_

The last call— he had been reluctant to give Stiles his number. He had fallen for the spastic ADHD act, had expected stupid messages and comments of bravado. They had never happened. He had received in-depth question about werewolves, the kind he'd have expected Scott to ask at one point, when he still believed Scott would join him. He had gotten mistranslated creatures names, asking if they were real, "just in case." 

He had received seven words, the night before. _Erica and Boyd at the Argents. Help._ By the time he had read it, they were all in the warehouse and Scott was using him. 

Stiles answered on the first ring. 

_"…what."_

That hadn't been what Derek had expected. By the noises he could heard aside from Stiles' breathing —slightly labored, possible bruised ribs on top of the facial bruising he had noticed the night before— he wasn't at practice but in his room. 

"I need to speak to your father. Will he be at the station tomorrow during the day?"

Derek heard the sharp intake of breath. 

_"What? What is it about? Is it werewolf related? Derek, my father_ can not _find out!"_

Derek considered lying. 

"He might be safer knowing." 

_"No! No, no, no! There is no involving my dad in this shit, you can't—"_

"He's the Sheriff, Stiles! He's going to find the aftermath of "this shit" whether you allow it to happen or not," he snapped. He took a breath, blocking out Stiles's exclamations. Dragging this out hadn't been his goal. He had to call Stiles' name several times before Stiles stopped yelling at him. "That's not why I was calling you. I just need to talk to the Sheriff, and it has nothing to do with werewolves. Normal business only."

_"How can I be sure you're not going to spill?"_

"I have enough problems without adding the local law enforcement knowing about werewolves, trust me on that."

There was a strange, blank silence. It took Derek a couple of heartbeats to realize which words he had used, throwing him back to the pool and Stiles the only thing keeping him afloat, keeping him alive. 

_"Can I? Actually trust you, I mean."_

Derek rubbed his nose, the smell of chlorine from the pool almost overpowering, even if it was a porch and half a garden away. "That's up to you, isn't it?" There was a beat, he could hear a car passing on the other side of the bed and breakfast. "Will your father be at the station tomorrow, that's all I want to know."

_"What for? And you know, you could probably have gotten this info from someone else, so you knew I was going to ask a ton of questions, to which I'm still expecting answers, so why call me?"_

"I can't answer that, and you're the last one who saw Boyd and Erica."

_"Can't or won't— I think it's pretty clear keeping secrets is working for exactly no-one, why don't we all learn from our mistakes and share, in the spirit of cooperation and pack? And I know nothing about where they are. They yours, you deal with them."_

_Scott made it quite clear there was no pack going on_ but Stiles had arrived after that, hadn't he? Did he even knew? Derek had already taken what felt like too long for those calls. "Stiles," he snapped, reacting to the anger's in the other's voice. 

_"Fuck you, Hale. Didn't you hear? A kid apparently died on the field and there was a massive break-in in one of the warehouses. They're still short-staffed. I have no idea when my father'll be home."_ And Stiles hung up. 

+++ 

Natasha was sitting cross-legged at the small table between the beds when he walked back in. The tablet in front of her was showing a feed, empty— and then Agent Maria Hill walked in it. 

_Shit._

_"Agent Hale,"_ she said, and he repeated the _shit_ in his head. Better than seeing Director Fury, but not that much better. _"Good to see you in one piece. Agent Romanov will explain SHIELD's current situation later, but we're going to need an idea of what has been going on in the last four months on your side."_

An informal debriefing, then— that was mostly good. He couldn't hear much from the feed, couldn't recognize the room it was coming from aside from its characteristic "SHIELD-chic," as Laura had called it. 

"Ma'am," he started. Licked his lips, slipped his phone in his pocket, balanced his weight more equally on both feet. He'd stand, the posture familiar, carefully not looking at Natasha. "I don't quite know what to begin with. My apologies for how disjointed this is going to be."

Hill made a sign to get on it. Derek took a breath.

"I returned from Europe on January fourth. Laura wasn't in, and the state of the apartment led me to believe she was on an assignment. She usually leav- left a message, but I didn't find any and didn't think about it.

On the sixth I got… a feeling. I wouldn't get an answer if she was deployed, but I still went to HQ and asked if she had left me a message. She had— taken a leave of absence. She had taken the car, too, but she wasn't answering her phone when I called. The only thing she had left was a timed e-mail." He swallowed. "I knew she— was still looking for the causes of the fire that killed our family but I didn't know she— anyway, she had received a fax from Beacon Hills, about a weird animal death, a deer with a spiral carved in its side. Spiral is a werewolf symbol, of revenge. Given that the only one in Beacon Hills we both knew about was our uncle, who was still in a comatose state and under SHIELD-vetted care, she had decided to have a look at it herself. 

By the time I got my leave accepted and got a flight out, I arrived in Beacon Hills the night Laura was killed." 

_"Was it the day you were arrested?"_

"No, two days later. Two kids found her body— I had... buried her. She had been killed by a werewolf, and the same one, now an alpha, had bitten one of those kids. They thought I had been the one. Hence them spying on me and me being arrested."

"Names?" asked Natasha. Derek didn't glance at her.

"Scott McCall was the one bitten. The other's Stiles Stilinski, the Sheriff's kid. Both in high school, with single parents." He had little doubts SHIELD would know all that was needed to know about the two of them by the end of the hour. "Laura's death was ruled an animal attack, even if she had been cut in half —a hunter's move. I learned a couple days later that hunters had been in town since about the time the fax about the animal death had been send to Laura. And those hunters knew exactly who and what I am. It was—" He rubbed his face with one hand. "The hunters are Argents, Chris, Victoria and their daughter Allison. Allison didn't know about werewolves and hunting until the winter formal— that was in February. She and Scott are in a relationship, or were, and she's his anchor. 

I enrolled Scott in the search for the alpha— wouldn't have been able to get rid of him, he and Stiles tend to look for trouble. And Scott was being called by the alpha. More murders weren't acceptable, the alpha was doing enough as it was. He— I found Laura's car and her research, and she had a list of all the people who had had a hand in the fire." 

There were glances and minutes expressions in the two women. Derek didn't let it phase him. "All of them were killed, save for one, who could say who the arsonist was. Once we realized that, well. We realized that Peter Hale, my uncle, was the alpha. Any change in his condition should have been relayed to us, but obviously his nurse wasn't doing that part of the job properly. She was killed, too. 

The woman who had directed the fire was in Beacon Hills too in early February, name Katherine Argent, she was— Chris' younger sister." He took a breath, then, hid the fact he wanted to fidget as best as he could. "The night of the winter formal, Peter killed her; I killed Peter on the same night when it was clear he wouldn't stop anymore." He paused there, again. "At the same time all this was going on, I checked on our perimeter. Over the years, we left markers signaling that this territory was claimed and protected, even if none of us was physically present, and I found it more deteriorated than it should have been. I don't know what's the exact cause, but after reading the file on the Alpha Pack, an intrusion of this strength could be it." 

_"All of this account for events until February. What happened next?"_

"I— I was never trained to take over alpha duties. The instinct to create a pack, probably coupled with the deterioration of the perimeter, led me to seek out— more people. McCall had refused to even be part of the same group, let alone a pack, with me. And Kate's death bought on only more hunters, including Gerard Argent." 

_"Is he still here?"_ Hill's eyes were hard. 

"Currently MIA, ma'am. He's been— I bit one teenager, Jackson Whittemore, under threat of blackmailing, though I doubt I could have stopped myself from biting him when he offered himself, as I was still under the influence of the change into an alpha." It was not an excuse. It was facts. Derek knew his place in this clusterfuck, and refused to not take responsibilities for it. "He changed, but not into a wolf, into a kanima. It's a— usually a tool of revenge and murder. He didn't know what he or that he had even changed until recently. A kanima needs a master to direct it, though. And the one who was that was another teen, Matt Daller, Dealher, something. He was almost caught by the sheriff's department, and he killed everyone in the station for it. I was not witness to it, but I know Gerard Argent killed Matt and took the kanima with him. He used it to threaten Scott, and to help him with— with basically forcing me to bite Argent. It didn't take, Argent's system was saturated with mountain ash. His body wasn't there when we left, and we didn't see him moving. That was last night. As for Jackson, we managed to force the change on him, he's a werewolf now," he added, then went silent. 

Neither women spoke up right away, Hill looking off the feed into the room she was in, talking with no sound. He didn't dare look at Natasha, again. 

_"You've left a lot out."_

He nodded. "Yes ma'am. Gerard Argent's status seemed of more immediate concern." When there was no answer, he continued. "I bit and changed three teens. Isaac Lahey, his father was one of the first killed by the kanima, Erica Reyes, and Vernon Boyd. Erica and Boyd choose to leave two nights ago; I know they were caught by the Argents then let go. I can feel them, but no-one knows where they are and they're not answering their phones. 

Another teen was bitten by Peter in February the night I killed him— Lydia Martin. Nothing happened to her, no death, no change, at least at first, and she was one of the candidates for being the kana due to that. I think— Peter is the kind of person to have several plans, and she was one of them. Last full moon, she poisoned me with a mix of wolfsbane and used my blood, or the power of being an alpha, or something. It brought Peter back— if he was dead at all in the first place."

Natasha's concern was echoed on Hill's face. _"What do you mean?"_

"I don't know enough about- magic, or however you want to call it, to have more than theories."

"But Peter would know," said Natasha. Derek risked looking at her, nodded. 

"Yes. I only know the stories. He actually knows about them and how they are translated into real knowledge."

_"Are you his alpha then?"_

"As far as I can tell, yes."

_"Any thoughts on how that might develop?"_

"Still too early, I think. If I have any sway on him, I'd rather keep him close. But in the long run, we need stability."

"A pack."

Derek nodded at Natasha reaching the same conclusion as him. She had seen how Unit members acted toward each other, she probably knew their psychological profiles too.

_"Anything else?"_ Hill now had the look of someone who needed to be places that were not video feeds.

"There's some sort of magical advisor in town— Laura mentioned him, so did my mother, but I have no idea whose side he is on or if he can be trusted. Goes by Alan Deaton. Victoria Argent took her life, too. I'm responsible for it." Neither of them pushed, and for it he was grateful. He felt like his insides were out, raw to the air.

_"Is the area settled then?"_

"I don't know, ma'am. There shouldn't be any other werewolf-related death, or newly bittens. What the hunters and Gerard Argent will do is out of my control. As an aside, I didn't share my involvement with SHIELD with anyone, and while there's still the risk of a leak, I don't think anyone knows about me being a SHIELD agent."

_"That'll be all for today then. We need a complete threat assessment, those forms are on your tablet. Derek,"_ she called, looked right at him, _"I'm sorry for your loss. You'll need to speak paperwork at some point soon."_

"Thank you, ma'am," he said to a dark screen. 

He sighed and sat down heavily, his eyes closed, his hands dangling between his knees. He felt the mattress dipping under Natasha's body more than he heard her move from across the room and sit down. 

"Where have you been staying," she said— maybe it was a question. 

"The car. The train depot. I need to find a place. It can't…" He passed his hands over his face, eyes still closed, "it can't be a place I'd put more people in danger. Every hunter in Beacon Hill knows I'm a werewolf. Most of them don't care about casualties." 

"And when was the last time you slept?" 

He opened his eyes, looked at her. Red hair, strong hands, knowing eyes. She didn't wait for the answer, pulled him on the bed after her, where she sat against the liberty-covered headboard. He stayed stiff for a moment, probably a moment too long and he knew she would have questions he wouldn't be able to evade. 

"There's still a lot you need to know, but you need sleep more. I'll take the first watch," and he nodded, his head tucked against her hip, his hand on her knee, her finger in his hair. It was still light out, only four or five in the afternoon. Erica and Boyd felt even more distant, inside. Isaac felt closer, but not as close as he should have been, not as close as _pack_ or _team_ had ever felt to Derek. 

It took him a long time to relax enough to nap, even with Natasha here, right here, grounding him. And when he did nod off, he dreamed of the uncomplicatedness of sand under his teeth and of Deneb, Sadr, Albiero shining above his head, and of working with Team Strike Delta. 

He dreamed of red eyes looking back at him in the mirror in his sister's face and of monsters with human teeth.


End file.
